As is well known, after snow falls it is desirable to remove the snow from areas that are used by pedestrians and vehicles. As used herein, the term “areas” includes sidewalks and other known pedestrian walkways such as walking paths, stairs, patios and decks, as well as driveways and certain roadways, parking areas and alleyways that are cleaned after a snowstorm with a conventional shovel, snow removal machine, or other equipment that carries a plow.
In the typical operation of a snow removal machine, a scraper at the front of the housing opening lifts the snow into the housing where the precipitation engaging member or impeller cuts the snow/precipitation. However, no matter the type of conventional snow removal machine used to clear an area, after the snow removal machine passes over the area, a layer of snow, ice and/or slush will remain. This can be due to the inability of the snow removal machine to scrape all of the snow, ice, and/or slush off the surface of the area because of damage to the opening of the housing, because of an irregular/uneven surface in the area being cleared that results in the front opening of the snow removal machine riding over the highest point of the irregular/uneven surface and thereby passing over some of the snow, ice, and/or slush. In order to treat this situation, many people attempt to spread a deicer on the surface of the area using their hand or a manual spreader after they have completed using a snow removal machine. However, these spreaders may not provide enough deicer to effect a substantially complete clearing of the area. Alternatively, an excessive amount of the deicer may be applied over the area to be treated. Excessive amounts of deicer can cause significant waste of the deicer and structural damage to the surface of the area that will only add to the inability of a snow removal machine to effectively clean off that area in the future. Additionally, excessive amounts of deicer can be environmentally dangerous and cause injuries to people and animals that use the treated area. As a result, a system for properly applying a predetermined and accurate amount of a treatment material is needed.
Furthermore, the additional steps of having to separately retrieve and distribute treatment material is undesirable as it adds to the total time required to complete the snow removal and treat the area from which the snow was removed.
A need therefore exists in the art for a snow removal machine that applies a treatment material to the surface of an area after a snow removal machine has passed over that surface in order to deice the surface and prevent the formation of future ice and snow on the surface. A need also exists for such a device that eliminates the additional steps of retrieving the deicing and/or anti-icing material and applying it separately from the snow removal operation.
Before the various embodiments of the present invention are explained in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangements of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that phraseology and terminology used herein with reference to device or element orientation (such as, for example, terms like “front”, “back”, “up”, “down”, “top”, “bottom”, and the like) are only used to simplify description of the present invention and do not alone indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a particular orientation. In addition, terms such as “first”, “second”, and “third” are used herein and in the appended claims for purposes of description and are not intended to indicate or imply relative importance or significance.